LETTER 18: OTHER VERSIONS 1S 
short French version of Chr. Huygens.’ Oldenburg rightly 
translated it ‘in my Counter’ or Study ’’—evidently being at 
a loss for the exact English equivalent of the Franco-Dutch 
word. But Kent, by “copying” Oldenburg, ultimately gives 
us “on my counter of study’’—an unintelligible expression 
which he perhaps imagined to mean “on my laboratory 
bench ”’.* 
On 7 November 1676, a month after he had sent his long 
letter to the Royal Society, Leeuwenhoek wrote a much 
shorter account of the same observations to his old friend 
Sir Constantijn Huygens—the statesman-poet father of 
Christiaan, the famous astronomer and mathematician. This 
letter *is preserved at Leyden, and has recently been published 
by Vandevelde and van Seters (1925). At Leeuwenhoek’s 
request it was translated into French by Christiaan Huygens 
—then at Paris—whose MS. translation is also now in the 
Leyden University Library along with its Dutch original. 
This French version was evidently intended for presentation 
to the Paris Academy: but another French abstract or 
summary of Leeuwenhoek’s observations was printed in the 
Journal des Scavans some two years later,’ and the translation 
made by Huygens has only recently been published in 
Holland.° These various abstracts give but a poor idea of 
™ See note 6 below. 
> i.e. Counting-house (reekenkamer). 
° I regret to say that at least one modern Dutch translator and one 
Flemish commentator have fallen into the same error. They should both 
have known better. 
* Letter 18b, according to my numeration. Referred to by Haaxman 
(1875), p.135. Snelleman (1874) has printed a part of this letter, in the 
original Dutch, but his version contains several manifest misreadings which 
Vandevelde and van Seters have rectified. I have carefully compared the 
(published) letter of 7 Nov. 1676 with Letter 18, and it is obvious that it is 
merely a very condensed account (not half the length) of the latter. It 
contains nothing that is not more fully given in the original (Letter 18, 
9 Oct. 1676) addressed to the Royal Society. The comparison instituted by 
Vandevelde and van Seters between the French and Dutch abstracts and 
Oldenburg’s short English version seems somewhat unprofitable, since they 
never consulted the Dutch original in extenso (Letter 18). 
> Journ. d. Scav., Vol. IX. 1678 (pp. 55 and 68 of nouv. éd., 1724). 
° Gwores Completes de Chr. Huygens (1899), Vol. VIII, pp. 22-27 
(No. 2100). 
